The New Toy
by dantesdarkqueen
Summary: Tifa hates it when the neighborhood kids dig through her trash. Now she has a new reason to padlock her garbage cans. Ties in with "At Last" and "The Gift."


**Summary: **Tifa hates it when the neighborhood kids dig through her trash. Now she has a new reason to padlock her garbage cans. Ties in with "At Last."

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**Queen's Quornor: **Sometimes the best ideas come from the strangest places. I was browsing at Spencers, looking through the posters, when two girls came up behind me. They were looking at...certain things, and one of them made the comment about how her little brother had found her mother's box of toys, and been playing with them when she got home from school. I'm not sure why this came to mind when I overheard them, but it did, and here you are.

The New Toy

It was time. Tifa hugged the shoebox close, reminding herself that she didn't need its contents any longer. With Cloud spending more time at home and their relationship in such great shape, this box was pretty much useless to her. He didn't know about it, and she'd prefer to keep it that way - it would be way too embarrassing to explain what she was doing with this. She hadn't opened the box since he'd shown her how he felt a few weeks ago.

Tifa couldn't risk keeping this box around anymore, what with Marlene's near-discovery of it yesterday. Praise Shiva that she had walked in before the little girl had decided to clean beneath the bed. Besides, how was she supposed to explain herself if Cloud found out?

"Well, old friend," she sighed, "I guess your time has come."

She laid the shoebox atop the coffee grounds inside the garbage can and pressed the lid down, praying that the kids from down the street would leave her trash alone tonight. Tomorrow was garbage day, and so long as they picked someone else's trash to root through she was in the clear. Those kids had selected her cans last week, and they almost never picked through the same ones two weeks in a row. Surely they wouldn't be interested in rummaging through the bar's trash so soon?

Tifa hoped such was the case, and dragged the cans outside to the stoop.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Tifa never opened the bar on Sundays, because that was the one day Cloud was consistently home. He had suggested it after their first time, wanting to spend time as a family for several hours, and then go out somewhere with her alone. She had been enthusiastic about the idea back then, but today it had her a little on edge. Right now Cloud was out in the garage with the kids, letting them help him with Fenrir. Tifa had stayed in the house to balance the books, and her eyes kept straying to the window above the front door. She had to restrain herself from going over to check the cans every five minutes.

You're being silly, she scolded herself. Nobody's going to touch those cans. The kids have so many to choose from; there's no way they'd pick yours again this week. Besides, it's raining. What kid wants to paw through trash in the freezing rain?

Shaking her head, the barmaid turned her attention back to the books. Cloud was hopeless with numbers, so she did his accounting every week along with her own. Tifa liked numbers. She especially liked the numbers on the clock. The clock that said it would be another fourteen hours before the garbagemen came to...

She shoved back from the desk and stood up. Maybe she'd stop being so neurotic if she went downstairs, where she could keep her eye on the cans. Sighing, Tifa gathered up the checkbooks and her calculator. If Cloud or the kids came in and asked why she was doing the accounting on the bar, she could always say she just wanted a change of scenery. Balancing her boyfriend's box of receipts atop hers, the edgy barmaid proceeded down the stairs and into her bar.

It was not the nicest of days outside. A light drizzle had hung over the city since last night, but in the past hour it had intensified to freezing rain. In spite of the weather, a few kids refused to abide by common sense and were currently running around in the streets, soaked to the bone and laughing.

Tifa felt a smile curve her lips as she approached the window to watch them. Marlene and Denzel were great kids, and she would do anything for them, but a part of her couldn't wait to become a biological mother. Fostering Barret's little girl and adopting Denzel had given her a real family, another new start after three whole years of rebuilding, Geostigma, and the Deepground War. She and Cloud had already discussed having children of their own, and had agreed that they wanted some of their own. It was just a question of when. Tifa was willing to wait again, since waiting had finally resulted in Cloud admitting his love. It was just that she really wanted to see what their kids would look like.

She was wondering whose eyes would be the more likely to wind up on a baby when two scruffy boys ran by the window, apparently playing tag.

Her eyes nearly sprang from their sockets when she realized what the older boy was holding.

The receipts scattered across the floor as she shot out the door. Tifa jumped over the fallen garbage can, collared the boy by his jacket, ripped the vibrating object out of his hand, and zipped back inside. She slammed the door shut and locked it, feeling the heat of her embarrassment rising. When had those kids...?

"Lady! Give it back!" The door rattled and banged with the blows of little fists. "Give it back! That's ours! We found it!"

"No, it's mine!" she yelled back, trying to switch it off with trembling hands.

"You threw it away! You don't want it anymore!" another voice accused. "Give us back our toy, lady!"

"We're gonna tell Mom if you don't!"

Tifa raced upstairs, clutching the toy close. The last thing she wanted was to meet these kids' mother, but she definitely didn't want to explain why they couldn't have this back. Right now, all she wanted to do was hide.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Cloud had just finished washing his hands in the downstairs bathroom when the door started banging. What were Marlene and Denzel doing home so soon? he wondered. They had asked to go eat dinner with one of Denzel's friends from the Geostigma incident, and the swordsman had been looking forward to spending a few hours alone with Tifa. Flicking the water off, he went to the bar's entrance and unlocked the door, allowing a matronly woman to storm inside with two young boys. "Where is that thief?" she brayed.

The swordsman felt his eyebrows raise. "What thief?"

"That woman! She stole my boys' new toy and refused to give it back!" The woman hugged her sons close, almost smothering them in her coat. "What kind of world are you people building here, if a grown woman can mug two innocent little boys?"

"I'm sure Tifa had a reason," Cloud began, but was cut off by the indignant visitor.

"I don't care what reason she had; she stole a toy from my sons, snatched it right out of Kenni's hands! Look what she did to him!" She forced the bigger boy's head back, allowing Cloud to see a soft redness circling the front of his neck.

"She grabbed me by my coat and yanked me back, then stole our toy," he sullenly informed the surprised blond.

"Either you get their toy back, or I'll have her arrested!" his mother declared.

Cloud couldn't imagine what would possess Tifa to mug a child. She was the last person he would think capable of something like that. "Let me see if I can find her. Stay here," he told the fuming woman.

Walking upstairs, the swordsman told himself to keep an open mind. Whatever had caused Tifa to do this, she had to have had a good reason. He reminded himself of that one more time, then knocked on her door.

"Go away," came the muffled answer.

"Tifa, there's a woman and two boys here to see you," he said.

"I don't want to see them."

He frowned. "Can I come in?"

"No!" she shouted. "Don't come in!"

"Tifa, you've got to talk to them. Please come out."

"Did they tell you why they're here?"

"Something about you stealing their new toy."

The door cracked open and Tifa's bright red face appeared between it and the lintel. "Did they describe the toy?" she asked.

"What's wrong?" Cloud asked, wondering why she was blushing.

"Did they tell you what it looked like?"

He shook his head. "They just want it back."

"They _can't_ have it back," she insisted. "It was mine, and they took it out of the trash."

"So?" Cloud didn't see what the problem was. If the toy was Tifa's and she had decided it was time to get rid of it, and then some kids pulled it out of the can and decided it was worth keeping, what was the big deal?

"Cloud..." Tifa whined. "Don't make me do this. They don't want that toy! It's not something a kid should have!"

That got his attention. "What kind of toy was it?"

Somehow, his girlfriend found the spare blood to flush even redder. "It was mine."

Cloud pushed the door open enough to grip her shoulders. "Tifa, what kind of toy was it?"

She fidgeted, and refused to look him in the eye. "Vibrator."

"What?" The swordsman wasn't quite sure he had heard her correctly.

"It was my vibrator." Tifa shoved one hand into her hair and looked at the floor. "I haven't used it since we...you know, and I didn't need it anymore, so I..."

"You threw it out." Cloud felt a smile rising, and bit the inside of his lip to stop it. The last thing Tifa needed right now was to think that he was laughing at her. "Why didn't you wait until it was late, when those kids would've been inside?"

"Marlene almost found it yesterday, when she cleaned my room to surprise me." The barmaid covered her face and leaned against the lintel in shame. "I was hoping the rain would keep them from scrounging through the garbage. When I saw them chasing each other with it, I just..."

"You freaked," Cloud supplied.

"I did not _freak_, Cloud! I just got it away from them!"

"They think you stole their toy, and their mother is here to get it back."

"They can't have it back!" Tifa hugged herself. "I didn't want anybody to know I had one, especially not you. What's she going to think of me when she finds out what her sons were playing with? I'm a respected woman in the community; there's no way this will just go away!"

The swordsman hugged her, hiding his smile above her head. "You're going to have to tell her, Tifa. They're not going away until you either produce the toy, or tell the mother what it was."

She sighed against his chest and squeezed him tight. "Come down with me?"

"If you want me to."

"Yeah." Tifa slid out of his arms and grabbed his hand, allowing him to lead her down the stairs. The moment they rounded the corner into the bar, the older woman stood up from one of the booths and verbally pounced.

"Where is it?" she demanded.

"Where's what?" Tifa returned, flushing.

"The toy you ripped out of my son's hands!" The woman clamped her hands atop her ample hips and glared at the young martial artist. "I want you to return their new toy, or I'll press charges against you. How could a grown woman such as yourself, a _hero_, mug a little boy for a toy?"

Tifa was redder than Cloud had ever seen her. She hung her head, and held her arm with her free hand. "Did you ask them what the toy looked like, or where they got it?"

"All they said was that it was their new toy." The woman glanced back at her sons, who were still in the booth. "Could you give it back to them already? I don't want this to turn ugly."

Tifa swallowed. "Ma'am, the toy was...not something for children. It was an adult toy I had thrown in the trash."

"'Adult toy'?" She squinted her eyes suspiciously. "What kind of toy would an adult use?"

The barmaid bit her lip, then leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear. The older woman flinched back with a little scream. "_That?_" Tifa nodded. "And it was in your garbage can?" Another nod.

The older woman whirled around and her hands flashed out, grabbing her sons by their ears. That done, she began dragging them away. Over their yelps, she told the wall "Next time, you might consider throwing your possessions out a little closer to the pick-up time. Sorry for the inconvenience, and good day."

As the door shut, Tifa zipped across the room and threw the lock, ensuring that the lady wouldn't come back inside. When she turned around, she was still the same shade as Vincent's cloak.

Cloud was still trying not to smile. "I guess that means her kids won't be digging through our trash anymore."

"I'm going to be a laughingstock." His girlfriend buried her face in her hands again and leaned against the wall. "What are people going to say when they hear what those boys were playing with?"

"They'll say that it was my fault."

She lifted her head to stare at him. "What are you talking about? You had nothing to do with this, Cloud."

"But I did." He approached her and took her in his arms, finally allowing a smile to appear. "Because I wasn't around enough to keep you from needing a toy."

Tifa laughed. "Don't tell me you're going to blame yourself for this."

"I didn't buy it for you, and you haven't used it since we gave Denzel my old room. But I'm the reason you needed one in the first place," he explained. "If I had shown you how I felt back when we first built the bar - "

She laughed again and linked her fingers behind his neck. "Cloud, I've had that vibrator since I first came to Midgar. I thought of you whenever I used it, though."

"See? It is my fault," he teased.

"No, it's Jessie's."

"Jessie?" the swordsman echoed. "How is it her fault?"

Tifa giggled and a hint of the former redness rose to tint her cheeks. "She's the one who took me to the store. Hers had broken, and Barret didn't want us going anywhere alone. My birthday was coming up soon, so..."

"I see." Cloud finally snickered. "So your old toy became their new toy because _I'm_ your new toy?"

"Yeah, let's go with that," she mumbled, burying her face against his neck.

"Wanna know a secret?" he whispered.

"Hm?"

Tifa squealed as Cloud picked her up and cradled her against his chest, carrying her towards the stairs. "You're not the only one with a new toy they like to play with, and I'm going to make absolutely sure you never need to find another toy as long as you live."


End file.
